How to Tailor a Resume to a Job Description
Prioritize relevant experience and wording without misrepresenting your background.
How to Tailor a Resume to a Job Description
Tailoring means making your relevant evidence easier to find for a particular opening. It does not mean creating a different career history for every employer. Your dates, roles, and actual work remain the same; the emphasis and order can change to match what the job needs.
What to do
-
Mark the central responsibilities and must-have skills in the posting. Separate them from nice-to-have items. Then identify where your work history or projects demonstrate each requirement.
-
Move the most relevant bullets higher within each role and shorten unrelated details. Use the employer's term when it accurately describes your work, but keep natural language.
-
Review the resulting resume as a whole. A skills list that says one thing while the projects show something unrelated may need better evidence or a different target role.
Example
For a testing role, highlight the automated tests and bug investigation you performed in a software project rather than leading with its visual styling.
A tailored resume helps a reader connect the role to work you have actually done.
Tailoring means making your relevant evidence easier to find for a particular opening. It does not mean creating a different career history for every employer. Your dates, roles, and actual work remain the same; the emphasis and order can change to match what the job needs.
Mark the central responsibilities and must-have skills in the posting. Separate them from nice-to-have items. Then identify where your work history or projects demonstrate each requirement.
Ready to build your resume?
Make your experience easy to read and ready to share.
- Choose from a variety of templates that fit your role
- Organize your resume sections in the order you like
- Take full control over your resume design
- Preview your resume and save it as a PDF